Download or read book The Puzzle of Unanimity written by Pamela C. Corley and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-15 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. Supreme Court typically rules on cases that present complex legal questions. Given the challenging nature of its cases and the popular view that the Court is divided along ideological lines, it's commonly assumed that the Court routinely hands down equally-divided decisions. Yet the justices actually issue unanimous decisions in approximately one third of the cases they decide. Drawing on data from the U.S. Supreme Court database, internal court documents, and the justices' private papers, The Puzzle of Unanimity provides the first comprehensive account of how the Court reaches consensus. Pamela Corley, Amy Steigerwalt, and Artemus Ward propose and empirically test a theory of consensus; they find consensus is a function of multiple, concurrently-operating forces that cannot be fully accounted for by ideological attitudes. In this thorough investigation, the authors conclude that consensus is a function of the level of legal certainty and its ability to constrain justices' ideological preferences.

Download or read book The Puzzle of Judicial Behavior written by Lawrence Baum and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2009-10-22 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From local trial courts to the United States Supreme Court, judges' decisions affect the fates of individual litigants and the fate of the nation as a whole. Scholars have long discussed and debated explanations of judicial behavior. This book examines the major issues in the debates over how best to understand judicial behavior and assesses what we actually know about how judges decide cases. It concludes that we are far from understanding why judges choose the positions they take in court. Lawrence Baum considers three issues in examining judicial behavior. First, the author considers the balance between the judges' interest in the outcome of particular cases and their interest in other goals such as personal popularity and lighter workloads. Second, Baum considers the relative importance of good law and good policy as bases for judges' choices. Finally Baum looks at the extent to which judges act strategically, choosing their own positions after taking into account the positions that their fellow judges and other policy makers might adopt. Baum argues that the evidence on each of these issues is inconclusive and that there remains considerable room for debate about the sources of judges' decisions. Baum concludes that this lack of resolution is not the result of weaknesses in the scholarship but from the difficulty in explaining human behavior. He makes a plea for diversity in research. This book will be of interest to political scientists and scholars in law and courts as well as attorneys who are interested in understanding judges as decision makers and who want to understand what we can learn from scholarly research about judicial behavior. Lawrence Baum is Professor of Political Science, Ohio State University.

Download or read book Law Ideology and Collegiality written by Donald R. Songer and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2012-04-11 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors use confidential interviews with Supreme Court justices, analysis of their rulings from 1970 to 2005, and measures that tap their perceived ideological tendencies to provide a critical examination of the ideological roots of judicial decision making, uncovering the complexity of contemporary judicial behaviour. Examining judicial behaviour through the lens of three different research strategies grounded in qualitative and quantitative methodologies, Law, Ideology, and Collegiality presents compelling evidence that political ideology is a key factor in decision making and a prominent source of conflict in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Download or read book Law in American History Volume III written by G. Edward White and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-25 with total page 1117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Law in American History, Volume III: 1930-2000, the eminent legal scholar G. Edward White concludes his sweeping history of law in America, from the colonial era to the near-present. Picking up where his previous volume left off, at the end of the 1920s, White turns his attention to modern developments in both public and private law. One of his findings is that despite the massive changes in American society since the New Deal, some of the landmark constitutional decisions from that period remain salient today. An illustration is the Court's sweeping interpretation of the reach of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause in Wickard v. Filburn (1942), a decision that figured prominently in the Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act. In these formative years of modern American jurisprudence, courts responded to, and affected, the emerging role of the state and federal governments as regulatory and redistributive institutions and the growing participation of the United States in world affairs. They extended their reach into domains they had mostly ignored: foreign policy, executive power, criminal procedure, and the rights of speech, sexuality, and voting. Today, the United States continues to grapple with changing legal issues in each of those domains. Law in American History, Volume III provides an authoritative introduction to how modern American jurisprudence emerged and evolved of the course of the twentieth century, and the impact of law on every major feature of American life in that century. White's two preceding volumes and this one constitute a definitive treatment of the role of law in American history.

Download or read book By the Court written by Peter McCormick and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2019-09-15 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Any court watcher knows that the Supreme Court of Canada delivers some of its major constitutional judgments in a “By the Court” format. This transformative approach abandons the common law tradition of attributing decisions to individual judges. By the Court is the first major study of these unanimous and anonymous decisions and features a complete inventory, chronology, and typology of these cases. Peter McCormick and Marc Zanoni explore the origins, purposes, and potential future of “By the Court,” framing this practice as uniquely Canadian, and the most dramatic form of a modern style that highlights the institution and downplays individual contributions.

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of the U S Supreme Court written by Artemus Ward and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-08-13 with total page 687 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The US Supreme Court is an institution that operates almost totally behind closed doors. This book opens those doors by providing a comprehensive look at the justices, procedures, cases, and issues over the institution’s more than 200-year history. The Court is a legal institution born from a highly politicized process. Modern justices time their departures to coincide with favorable administrations and the confirmation process has become a highly-charged political spectacle played out on television and in the national press. Throughout its history, the Court has been at the center of the most important issues facing the nation: federalism, separation of powers, war, slavery, civil rights, and civil liberties. Through it all, the Court has generally, though not always, reflected the broad views of the American people as the justices decide the most vexing issues of the day. The Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Supreme Court covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on every justice, major case, issue, and process that comprises the Court’s work. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Supreme Court.

Download or read book The Community Method written by R. Dehousse and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-04-28 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sixty years after its invention, the operational system of the European Union remains little-understood. The 'Community Method' provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of the functioning and achievements of the EU.

Download or read book American Judicial Process written by Pamela C. Corley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-09-25 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text is a general introduction to American judicial process. The authors cover the major institutions, actors, and processes that comprise the U.S. legal system, viewed from a political science perspective. Grounding their presentation in empirical social science terms, the authors identify popular myths about the structure and processes of American law and courts and then contrast those myths with what really takes place. Three unique elements of this "myth versus reality" framework are incorporated into each of the topical chapters: 1) "Myth versus Reality" boxes that lay out the topics each chapter covers, using the myths about each topic contrasted with the corresponding realities. 2) "Pop Culture" boxes that provide students with popular examples from film, television, and music that tie-in to chapter topics and engage student interest. 3) "How Do We Know?" boxes that discuss the methods of social scientific inquiry and debunk common myths about the judiciary and legal system. Unlike other textbooks, American Judicial Process emphasizes how pop culture portrays—and often distorts—the judicial process and how social science research is brought to bear to provide an accurate picture of law and courts. In addition, a rich companion website will include PowerPoint lectures, suggested topics for papers and projects, a test bank of objective questions for use by instructors, and downloadable artwork from the book. Students will have access to annotated web links and videos, flash cards of key terms, and a glossary.

Download or read book Values in the Supreme Court written by Rachel Cahill-O'Callaghan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the significance of values in Supreme Court decision making. Drawing on theories and techniques from psychology, it focuses on the content analysis of judgments and uses a novel methodology to reveal the values that underpin decision making. The book centres on cases which divide judicial opinion: Dworkin's hard cases 'in which the result is not clearly dictated by statute or precedent'. In hard cases, there is real uncertainty about the legal rules that should be applied, and factors beyond traditional legal sources may influence the decision-making process. It is in these uncertain cases – where legal developments can rest on a single judicial decision – that values are revealed in the judgments. The findings in this book have significant implications for developments in law, judicial decision making and the appointment of the judiciary.

Download or read book The Chief Justice written by David J. Danelski and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2016-08-05 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars use the most advanced methods in judicial studies to examine the role of Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

Download or read book The Puzzle Palace written by James Bamford and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1983-09-29 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this remarkable tour de force of investigative reporting, James Bamford exposes the inner workings of America's largest, most secretive, and arguably most intrusive intelligence agency. The NSA has long eluded public scrutiny, but The Puzzle Palace penetrates its vast network of power and unmasks the people who control it, often with shocking disregard for the law. With detailed information on the NSA's secret role in the Korean Airlines disaster, Iran-Contra, the first Gulf War, and other major world events of the 80s and 90s, this is a brilliant account of the use and abuse of technological espionage.

Download or read book Constitutional Personae written by Cass R. Sunstein and published by Inalienable Rights. This book was released on 2015 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Since America's founding, hundreds of U.S. Supreme Court Justices have issued a vast number of decisions on a staggeringly wide variety of subjects. Yet as the eminent legal scholar, Cass R. Sunstein shows, constitutional law is dominated by a mere quartet of character types, regardless of ideology: the hero, the soldier, the minimalist, and the mute."--Jacket flap.

Download or read book The Judicial Process written by Christopher P. Banks and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2015-02-19 with total page 643 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Judicial Process: Law, Courts, and Judicial Politics is an all-new, concise yet comprehensive core text that introduces students to the nature and significance of the judicial process in the United States and across the globe. It is social scientific in its approach, situating the role of the courts and their impact on public policy within a strong foundation in legal theory, or political jurisprudence, as well as legal scholarship. Authors Christopher P. Banks and David M. O’Brien do not shy away from the politics of the judicial process, and offer unique insight into cutting-edge and highly relevant issues. In its distinctive boxes, "Contemporary Controversies over Courts" and "In Comparative Perspective," the text examines topics such as the dispute pyramid, the law and morality of same-sex marriages, the "hardball politics" of judicial selection, plea bargaining trends, the right to counsel and "pay as you go" justice, judicial decisions limiting the availability of class actions, constitutional courts in Europe, the judicial role in creating major social change, and the role lawyers, juries and alternative dispute resolution techniques play in the U.S. and throughout the world. Photos, cartoons, charts, and graphs are used throughout the text to facilitate student learning and highlight key aspects of the judicial process.

Download or read book Justice and Empathy written by Robert A. Burt and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Foreword -- Introduction -- PART 1 PROTECTING VULNERABLE GROUPS IN PRINCIPLE -- One: A Living Truth -- Two: Judicial Power to Command -- Three: All That Is Solid -- Four: This Word "Reason"--Five: The Healthiest Possible Soul -- Six: The Democratic Path -- PART 2 PROTECTING VULNERABLE GROUPS IN PRACTICE -- Seven: Enslaving Criminals -- Eight: Respecting Same-Sex Relations -- Nine: Abortion: Private and Public Considerations -- Ten: Race Relations: Between Emancipation and Subjugation -- Eleven: Ordering Moral Deliberations -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z

Download or read book Shopping for College written by Douglas Dix and published by Archway Publishing. This book was released on 2013-10-21 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In order for college students to get what they really want, they need to start pursuing their passionsand friends and family members need to support them in that pursuit. Douglas Dix, PhD, a longtime college professor, takes on the modern higher education system in this guidebook that focuses on being authentic. Instead of studying a subject that guarantees a high-paying job, he pushes a radical idea: Do what you want to do. Students that follow their curiosity wherever it leads will be better equipped to work for companies founded on ethical business principles; advance the causes of liberty and justice for all; derive lasing satisfaction from helping people in need. The words that matter the most often go unheard from high school guidance counselors or at prospective campuses. Get the advice that can make the greatest difference as you search for the best school for yourself or a loved one in Shopping for College: How to Get What You Really Want.

Download or read book Reforming the European Union written by Daniel Finke and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-29 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades the European Union tried changing its institutions, but achieved only unsatisfying political compromises and modest, incremental treaty revisions. In late 2009, however, the EU was successfully reformed through the Treaty of Lisbon. Reforming the European Union examines how political leaders ratified this treaty against all odds and shows how this victory involved all stages of treaty reform negotiations--from the initial proposal to referendums in several European countries. The authors emphasize the strategic role of political leadership and domestic politics, and they use state-of-the-art methodology, applying a comprehensive data set for actors' reform preferences. They look at how political leaders reacted to apparent failures of the process by recreating or changing the rules of the game. While domestic actors played a significant role in the process, their influence over the outcome was limited as leaders ignored negative referendums and plowed ahead with intended reforms. The book's empirical analyses shed light on critical episodes: strategic agenda setting during the European Convention, the choice of ratification instrument, intergovernmental bargaining dynamics, and the reaction of the German Council presidency to the negative referendums in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland.

Download or read book Turning the Legislative Thumbscrew written by George Douglas Dion and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2010-05-06 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The use of filibusters in the U.S. Senate by small numbers of members to prevent legislative action apparently desired by a majority of the members--as evidenced by the battles over civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s--is legendary. Similar situations have existed in other legislative bodies over time. The fear that they will at some time be in the minority has inhibited actions by the majority groups to control the right of minority groups to block legislative action. And yet from time to time the majority in a legislative body has forced a change in the rules to control the rights of the minority. When does the majority seek to limit minority rights to obstruct legislation? Douglas Dion, in a unique study, develops a formal model to set out the conditions under which majorities will limit minority rights. He finds that when majorities are small, they will be more cohesive. This majority cohesion leads to minority obstruction, which in turn leads to majority efforts to force procedural change to control the ability of the minority to obstruct legislation. Dion then tests his findings in a rich consideration of historical cases from the nineteenth-century U.S. House of Representatives, the nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. Senate, the British House of Commons, and an account of the Austro-Hungarian Parliament written by Mark Twain. Turning the Legislative Thumbscrew is a work that combines formal analysis with extensive historical evidence to address an important problem in democratic theory. Specialists in legislative politics and American political development, as well as those more broadly interested in the relationship between democratic theory and institutional structure, will find the work of great interest. Douglas Dion is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan.